Square Software Engineer interview experience

The recruiter had painted things as transparent and emphasized that thought process mattered, but after multiple rounds and multiple interview sessions, I was ultimately rejected with extremely brief feedback. The reasons given were hard to reconcile with what I experienced during the interviews, especially around Java knowledge.

What really threw me off was the mismatch between what I was told to prepare for and what I got on the day. The materials had pointed me toward designing a hotel booking system, but during the actual interview I was asked to design a stock market instead. As I kept